


Catch You on the Flipside

by GretaRama



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Adventure, Amputee!Earl, Bloodlust, Cuddling & Snuggling, Excitement, First Times, Fluff and Smut, M/M, PTSD, Safe Sane and Consensual, Slow Burn, Somehow?, Various kinds of sex, Zombies, new relationships, um
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 10:14:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4872910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretaRama/pseuds/GretaRama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Earl Harlan lost his leg and his direction in life after being attacked by mute children at Night Vale's last Boy Scout Court of Honor. Now, he's finally going to visit Kevin, the one person who might be as lonely, wounded, and lost as Earl himself. </p><p>Neither of them has the slightest idea what to expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catch You on the Flipside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeathPalmNut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathPalmNut/gifts).



> A sequel to Desert Solitaire (http://archiveofourown.org/works/4745438), the yang to that yin. If you don't feel like reading DS, just know that it was based on this prompt, you should be okay:
> 
> _Earl was lonely. He took care of Roger and occasionally had an after work drink with LaShawn as they hashed over menus, but he hadn't been in a relationship since... Well, that was hard to say since he had no real idea of the decades he spent at age nineteen. Lately he’d had insomnia, and spinning the dial to escape Cecil’s program, had heard a different bright, chipper voice gracing an unknown frequency. Realizing who this was, one thought wouldn't leave Earl: Wasn't that man Carlos left out in the desert otherworld lonely too?_

Earl had been traveling for hours, when he started to feel decidedly strange.

His muscles, unused to the walker and to the sustained exercise, trembled each time he swung the walker forward and hopped after it. Blisters had formed on the skin between his index finger and thumb, and he’d had to change his grip on the walker’s handles. The new hand position saved his abused skin, but felt unnatural, and shortened his stride. All this was more or less in line with the usual hassles of his life with one leg, the kind of thing he’d grown accustomed to in the last couple of years.

But now he also felt irritable, he had a headache, what was left of his strength was giving out, and his concentration was lapsing. What was the matter with him? 

And then it dawned on him that he was probably hungry. He was _hungry._

He almost laughed, it had been so long since he’d really wanted to eat anything, never mind that his whole life was ordered around other people’s meals. At home, he made breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for Roger. He always kept mealtimes on a regular schedule, because he’d read in the City of Night Vale Social Services Parenting Manual that predictability and reliability were key when it came to assimilating unexpected or forgotten children into a new household. His professional life was the same: imagining and creating meals and delivering them in a predictable manner. It was funny, he thought, that with so much of his time devoted to the preparation and timely delivery of food, he should forget to feed himself.

He made his way into the slight shade of an overhanging rock ledge and lowered himself carefully down onto a boulder. He took off his backpack, enjoying the cooling sensation of the dry desert air evaporating sweat from his damp shirt. He found a bag of trail mix and a protein bar and forced himself to eat them slowly, interspersed with swigs of water from his canteen. By the time he was done, he was still hungry, and tired, but he felt better. A lot better.

He’d even go so far as to say he felt good, for the first time in two years; good in the clean and uncomplicated way he always felt in the wilderness. And now he really did laugh, because he was such a goddamn idiot.

* * *

Kevin opened the second letter with a certain amount of trepidation. He could tell, both from the handwriting and from the fact that the address - _Kevin, Care of Radio Station, New Desert Bluffs_ \- was written in crayon, that it was from the same person who had written him originally.

He remembered the morning he’d walked up the little path toward the radio tower and seen the flag on the mailbox glinting in the sun. _Perhaps there was a storm,_ he’d thought. _Maybe it got blown around overnight. I’ll just go...fix it. Fix it, because it’s definitely some kind of mistake. There won’t be any mail, I’ve been speaking to nothing all along, talking into the void, it’s hopeless, hopeless, and I’m alone, all alone, and-_

And he’d had to stop walking and hold his head in his hands as the other voice, the piercing, cheerful one, tried to smooth everything over. _Smile, smile, smile!_ the voice said. _Light and light and light…_

That voice was growing weaker, though. It wasn’t so easy, not anymore, to ignore the dire reality in which he found himself. He stepped up to the mailbox and pushed the little flag down. Should he check inside, just in case? Could he cope with the disappointment if the box were empty? He just stood there, staring at the mailbox. Why had he built this? Hadn’t he realized he’d created the perfect device for self-torture? He couldn’t open it. He couldn’t _not_ open it. He could only stand there and stare and struggle with himself.

 _Open it,_ said the harder of the two voices. _Nothing good will come of hoping. You’ve got to know, and deal with whatever you learn._

 _An unopened mailbox is hope, and hope is happiness, and happiness is the most important thing of all,_ said the bright, chipper voice. _Remember the last letter…_

Which one to trust? He was desperately curious, but he _did_ remember the last letter, the one from Carlos. It had been a cold slap in the face; after an entire year spent working together, he’d thought they’d grown close, but Carlos had obviously been disturbed, or at least _disappointed_ , by some of his behavior. _It’s not me,_ he’d wanted to explain. _This isn’t really me, it’s the other one, the one who helped me survive when-_

But Carlos hadn’t hung around to talk about it, and Kevin wasn’t really sure he could have explained anyway. He hadn’t been sure he could betray the part of himself that had made his continued existence possible after StrexCorp had taken over. He still _needed_ that self. At least, he thought he did. 

And then he had looked down at his hand, which was moving slowly toward the mailbox door, as if it were possessed. It closed around the latch and popped it, and the door swung loose, and there, inside, was a single, white envelope.

Just like this morning.

He thought back to that earlier letter, to the description of the horrible ( _wonderful_ ) ordeal his new friend Earl had endured. The disgusting ( _delicious_ ) description of the mute children tearing at his body, rending skin, shearing bone, _the femoral artery sucking back into the ripped flesh of his upper thigh, blood gushing out like a river through a busted dam, pooling in the dry sand, rounding with surface tension and then overflowing, hot and wet and everywhere_ had made him feel faint with horror ( _lust_ ), and he’d had to put the letter aside for several minutes while he pulled himself together, performing a breathing exercise he’d learned from Carlos and Doug at the hot yoga studio.

He wondered about this man, Earl Harlan, Night Vale’s erstwhile Scoutmaster. He was reminded, for some reason, of Arlene Holland, one of the prettiest girls in his high school class. She’d eventually become the Scoutmistress of the Desert Bluffs Girl Scout troop. She’d been so lovely, with her fair, freckled skin and warm auburn hair tumbling down her back in flaming waves. Another memory tried to surface, of what had happened to her later, but he held his breath and pushed it down, deep and deep and deep, until it stopped struggling and went away.

He opened the envelope and smoothed the letter out on his desk.

“Oh my god,” he murmured as he read it, and in his mind a bright light flared, and the other voice chanted _Smiling smiling smiling god, worship worship worship with a smile smile smile,_ but he shook his head as if he might dislodge the unwanted thoughts.

Because reading the letter, he felt happy. Not the kind of happy that started with a smile and stayed there on the surface like a mask, but the kind of happy that started somewhere inside and bubbled up through his veins, like his blood had just been carbonated.

Earl was coming to see him, here, in New Desert Bluffs. He looked around the studio and frowned. Maybe he should redecorate? It was looking a little less than fresh around here lately, and he’d been looking for a project. Yes, he should definitely work on the studio. Maybe the whole town, now that he was thinking about it. If his new friend was willing to go to the trouble of coming all the way out here to see him, the least he could do was put in a little effort to make Earl feel welcome upon his arrival.

“I’m going to have a visitor,” he said to the sound booth. “It’s about time we had some fresh blood around here, don’t you think, Vanessa?”

* * *

He knew he’d found New Desert Bluffs when he saw the roller coaster.

What he hadn’t appreciated, couldn’t have imagined from the vague descriptions he’d heard on the radio, was how enormous the thing was. He’d never seen anything like it. It gleamed in the high desert sun, a deadly-looking Moebius strip of loops and hills and curves, towering over the sand. The sight of it filled Earl with dread.

As he drew closer and closer to the settlement, he anticipated hearing the screams of the Night Vale citizens trapped on the coaster, but when he was almost standing underneath it, he realized that he wasn’t just not hearing screams; he wasn’t hearing anything at all. The roller coaster had stopped.

He levered himself past the roller coaster and the waterfront spa and resort toward the foothill settlement, which consisted of caves, disused and tattered-looking tents, and there, with its tower light blinking, the radio station. 

He stopped, suddenly reluctant to close the last few hundred feet of his journey. Partly because he suddenly felt every nerve in his body, alive and electric, in a way he hadn’t felt in as long as he could remember. Partly because he had a funny feeling that tickled the nape of his neck and the back of his spine, the sense that he was being watched, and that something was not quite right.

He tightened his grip on the walker, aware of his total vulnerability, aware that if anyone - or anything - were to attack him, he’d be defenseless. He was always defenseless now, unbalanced and vulnerable. He stood still, heart pounding from exertion and from fear, trying to look less helpless than he felt.

“Hello?” he called. His voice echoed back from the steep rock slope ahead. Silence, then a faint scuttling sound, like pebbles trickling down a talus slope. 

“Is anyone here?” He took a few step-hops forward, looking around the settlement, for any sign of life. A ragged hide tent flap shuddered in the light desert breeze, and there were more sounds now, slight crunching of the pebbled sand. “Hello?”

“Scoutmaster?” came a dry, rasping voice from behind him. 

Earl turned, slowly, moving the walker to one side and hefting his body around to face the voice’s owner. And he froze. He recognized her. At least, he thought he did.

“Mrs. Wilson?” 

“Yes…” the woman said, moving closer with a slow, dragging step. Earl wanted to step back, but he couldn’t do it without a great deal of fuss, so he stayed where he was.

“Are you okay, Mrs. Wilson?”

“Is...Franklin...with...you?” the woman asked, her words halting and harsh. She looked terrible; her skin was sunburned and peeling, her skin shriveled taut against her bones. “Is he here?”

“Franklin? He advanced to Eternal Scout, Mrs. Wilson, shortly after you were locked inside the Dog Park. He’s back in Night Vale.” Earl swallowed hard. “Is anyone else here, Mrs. Wilson, or is it just you?”

“There are more,” the woman rasped. “Many of us. Why are you here? What do you want?”

Earl wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to answer, so he cast about for something else to say. “You look thirsty,” he said. “I just stopped for water a little while ago. Would you like some?”

“Water?” The woman looked confused, and Earl held the canteen out toward her. “Take it,” he said. “Go ahead.” But she just stared at it, and then at him, eyes red, expression blank. 

Behind him there were more shuffling footsteps. He glanced from side to side, and saw more familiar faces, all looking dazed, starved, and profoundly unwell. 

Mrs. Wilson was just standing there. “Water?” she said again. Earl stowed the canteen, got both hands on the walker, and pushed off, backing away and turning, looking around at the little circle of former Night Valians closing in around him. The radio station was so close now, but with the people crowding around him it might as well have been a mile away.

It was only then that he noticed that the light on top of the radio station was blinking in a pattern: three short flashes, three long flashes, and then three more short. Morse code for SOS. Too late, he realized that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

“Okay,” Earl said, backing up a little more. “Take it easy there, no need to come any closer.” A flash of memory - the mute children closing in, tiny hands tugging on his clothes and skin - blazed across his brain. Earl inhaled sharply, casting about for some weapon, anything that might help him fend them off. 

"You don't want to go that way," one of the horrible figures said. "That's where _he_ lives." They looked ancient, shriveled, almost mummified, and moved with a slow, creaking gait. He moved backward again, toward the radio station, but the crowd followed, pulled along as if they were magnetically linked to him.

"Where _who_ lives?" Earl asked, his voice steady, but only just. 

" _The Other,_ " the figure half-whispered, and something about the way he said it made Earl's skin crawl.

"You mean Kevin?" He asked tentatively. "Is that who lives there?" Another hop backwards. 

"The Other!” Now the other dessicated husks, still moving toward him, joined in. "The Other, The Other," they all droned in unison. 

Their bony arms stretched toward him, hands cramped clawlike and casting shadows on the sand. He was reminded again of the mute children, their tiny arms upraised in apparent supplication just before they tried to devour him. His body temperature dropped several degrees and he began, paradoxically, to sweat. Panic hammered at the door to his brain, begging to be let in, to wreak havoc with his composure.

 _Get a grip, Harlan,_ he admonished himself shakily. He took another big step back. He wasn't sure how fast these dried-out people could really move, so he didn't dare turn his back, not yet. He'd managed to put some distance between himself and them, but he needed more room, enough that he could maybe make it to the radio station before they caught up with him. The question was, how to get it? There were rocks around, but bending over to get one was probably beyond his capabilities right now. He had a hunting knife and a Swiss Army multi-tool, but he wasn’t going to be especially competitive in hand-to-hand combat against this many people. 

His desperation was making concentration difficult, and all he could think of was one of the oldest tricks in the book. "Hey," he said, pointing into the distance. "Um, look, he’s getting away."

And a miracle happened: they all turned and started shuffling in the direction he had pointed. He closed the short remaining distance to the radio station, arms weak with relief, barely able to suspend him as he hurried across the sand. As soon as he got to the front door, it swung open and a familiar voice said, "Thank my stars and garters, you made it! Hurry, hurry, come inside before they figure it out!"

* * *

Earl’s vision didn’t immediately adjust to the dim interior of the station after so long in the glaring desert sun. He closed his eyes, seeing the negative impression of the blinking red light imprinted on his eyelids. He opened them again, peering into the dim hallway, trying to discern the shape of the man in front of him.

“Are you alright? They didn’t hurt you, did they?” Kevin slammed the door closed and bolted the lock. 

“Kevin?” he was panting, inhaling shallow gulps of air that seemed to hold no oxygen. His head swam and his eyes blurred.

“Yes, it’s me. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. No. I...I will be,” Earl said, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “I’ll be fine...just...need a minute.”

“I’m so sorry. I tried to warn you, I really did.”

“The blinking light,” Earl said, nodding. “I saw it, but not until it was too late. Or almost too late. But - what happened to them? Why are they like that?” 

“I don’t know,” Kevin said. “I’ll tell you about what happened, but...you really don’t look so good. Would you like to come in and sit down?”

Earl nodded, quivering with spent adrenaline, breathing much too fast. “That - yeah,” he managed to say.

Kevin led him through another doorway into a radio studio not unlike the one at NVCR. He pulled out a chair for Earl, and once his guest was seated, he sank into a seat on the other side of the table.

“Are you going to be okay? Wow, you look so pale.”

Earl was shaking, covered in cold sweat. He wanted to collapse under the table, but he made himself focus on Kevin, on responding to his questions. “Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes...large crowds...even when it’s just normal people, sometimes, I…” he found he couldn’t finish, and he covered his eyes with one trembling hand. “I’m sorry,” he said, almost inaudibly. “Just...give me a minute.”

“Do you mind if I make a suggestion?”

Earl shrugged indifferently. He could barely focus on anything over the pounding of his blood in his ears.

“I’ve found that inhaling deeply through my nose, holding my breath for a count of two, then slowly exhaling while counting to ten keeps me from hyperventilating. Like this.” Kevin inhaled, held up one finger, then another. Held his breath. _One, two._ And exhaled. _One, two, three, four, five…_

Without thinking about it, Earl joined in one the second round. Inhale, one two. Hold, one, two. And exhale. He felt better almost immediately, just for having something to do. After the fifth round, he felt like he was sinking back into his body, the all-consuming panic receding, leaving calm in its wake. 

“Thank you,” he said, once he began to feel a little more collected. “I’m sorry...I’m not usually so..." So _what_ , he wondered? Traumatized? Susceptible to the vapors? And that was when he knew he must be feeling better, because he was suddenly excruciatingly self-conscious. He hadn’t envisioned his first face-to-face meeting with Kevin going this way. 

“No, _I’m_ sorry. This whole situation is my fault. You handled yourself really well, especially since you weren’t expecting them. They’ve been kind of a problem, hanging around, waiting for me if I step outside at night...but they do tend to scatter if the masked army swings through town, and they’re slower during the day.”

“How did they get off the roller coaster?” Earl asked. “What’s _wrong_ with them?”

“I’m not sure,” Kevin said. “But...I’m afraid I’m to blame for letting them loose.”

* * *

“Now, Vanessa,” Kevin said, as he hefted another ceramic skid onto his shoulder and started toward the roller coaster. “I know what you’re thinking! There was an honest-to-goodness scientist here for a whole year and he didn’t think brakes were feasible for the roller coaster, so what makes you think _you_ can do it?” He set the heavy object down and brushed off his hands. 

“But it’s like Carlos said: he’s a scientist, and he studies science, not mechanical engineering. And I know you think there are no surprises left in our relationship, Vanessa - but here’s something I bet you didn’t know! I had a double major in Communications and Mechanical Engineering at Desert Bluffs Community College.”

He removed a stopwatch from his pocket and held it up. “Those folks in Night Vale sure do throw some useful items into their municipal dog park,” he muttered. “Do you think they’re trying to get these things to their loved ones who are trapped inside, or are they just really heinous litterbugs with no sense of civic pride? Oops, here we go!” 

The roller coaster roared along the track, the screams of the riders dopplering as they traveled, the breeze from the train whipping Kevin’s hair and clothes back as it passed. He immediately clicked the button on the stopwatch and set to work. 

“We have exactly ten minutes before the train gets back to this point,” he explained. “Now, I’ll just add this skid assembly to the section of track here, near the platform. What I’m hoping, Vanessa, is that once I attach this lever, I can activate these rails to skid along the bottom of the car and slow it to a halt through friction. Wouldn’t do to set everyone on fire while I’m trying to rescue them! That would be so crazy! Why did I even think of that?” 

Eventually he managed to get all the components in place and stood back to examine his handiwork. He gave the lever and experimental tug and watched as the ceramic surface of the skids lifted up. 

“Now, part of the problem here is, I have no idea how high off the tracks the coaster is. If I elevate this too high, they’ll stop _much_ too suddenly. Too low, and they won’t make contact at all. So I’ve designed the brake to elevate in small increments, until we get just the right amount of lift. _Thank_ you, Vanessa, you are much too kind. I did try to think of everything, but I guess we won’t know if I’ve succeeded until we give it a go. Let’s go to the first level.”

It took three tries before he got it right, but on the third pass, the coaster screamed against the skid rails, a huge plume of smoke rose up from beneath the car, and the train finally groaned to a juddering, smoking halt in front of the platform.

Kevin stared at the passengers in surprise, and they stared back. 

“Hello, friends,” Kevin said. “I’m Kevin, and this is Vanessa,” he pointed at himself and his companion in turn. 

The passengers continued to stare, their eyes vacant in their hollow, wizened faces. “Whyyyy….” croaked one of them, his voice rusty from constant screaming. “Why did you stop us?”

“I thought you might be getting tired of this, after all this time,” Kevin said. “And I have a friend coming to visit and frankly, I’ve started to find this whole ‘constant roller coaster’ thing a little...I don’t know, disturbing? I want to make a good first impression. I want New Desert Bluffs to make a good first impression! So I decided to build some brakes for this thing. And they worked!”

“New Desert Bluffs?” Another person wheezed, lifting the safety harness with a sticklike arm. “No, this is the Night Vale Dog Park.”

“No, I’m sorry, but it really isn’t. This is New Desert Bluffs. We have a radio station and everything.” Kevin smile was beginning to falter.

“Interloper,” a voice crackled from the back of the train. 

“Why did you stop us? We were having fun!”

“Interloper! Other!”

They began to crawl out of the coaster, one by one, arms extended toward him, eyes whipped red by the sand-gritted wind.

“What? No! I live here! This is my home! What are you doing?” 

“Other! Destroy the Other!”

For a moment - just a fleeting handful of seconds, nothing more - Kevin contemplated leaping into the crowd, ripping them limb from limb. He thought about the screams. He thought about the _blood._

Then, wrenchingly, he thought better of it.

“Stop! No! Vanessa, run!” With an effort, he shoved the closest two former Night Valians backward, and they stumbled into the rest of the advancing mob, causing momentary confusion. Kevin grabbed Vanessa and ran, as fast as he could, back to the radio station.

* * * 

“And they’ve been wandering around like that ever since,” Kevin concluded. “They’re usually most active at night, but sometimes they venture out in the late afternoon, as you saw.”

“Were they like that before they went on the roller coaster?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve wondered if maybe that’s why the masked army put them on the roller coaster in the first place - to keep them out of the way. I see now that it was a mistake to release them, but I wanted…” he stopped talking and looked at Earl. “I was starting to find the whole thing kind of troubling. Kind of _wrong_. I wanted New Desert Bluffs to put its best foot forward, and having a bunch of people trapped on a roller coaster...I thought it sent the wrong message.”

“It was a good idea,” Earl said. “Your heart was in the right place.”

“You think so?” Kevin looked genuinely touched for a moment, then his face fell. “But I suppose it doesn’t really matter, given the results.”

“Of course it matters,” Earl said. “You saw people in trouble and you tried to help. It’s not your fault they turned out to be zombies. Nobody told you why they were on the roller coaster, how could you have known? And besides, if I’d gotten here and seen them trapped on that thing...I’d probably have wanted to try to free them, too.”

“You would? You’re not just saying that?”

“Of course not.”

“Oh, I’m so relieved,” Kevin said, and he smiled dazzlingly at Earl, who smiled back. 

The affinity Earl had sensed when Kevin was just a voice on the radio was even stronger now that the two of them were together. He’d worried that his decision to come here was rash, that they might finally meet and find that they were, after all, just two strangers who had nothing but loneliness in common. But every time their eyes met, that deep connection was there, it was real, tugging the two of them together. He felt a fluttering sensation in his lower belly, something that hadn’t happened in so long he’d started to think he’d never feel it again.

Kevin did bear some resemblance to Cecil; the shape of his face, the tilt of his eyebrows, even some of his facial expressions were all like Cecil’s. But the longer he looked at him, the more Earl saw the differences. Kevin’s face looked older, harder, perhaps because of the tracery of silvery scars on his face and neck, souvenirs of the torture he’d suffered at the hands of the cult of the Smiling God. He was a little more heavily built than Cecil, and his coloring was darker. He had a deep dimple in the center of one cheek when he smiled, as he was doing now, and Earl found it utterly adorable. 

Earl realized he was staring. “I’m sorry,” he said, smiling nervously. “It’s just - you remind me of someone from home, a little.” 

“You remind me of someone, too. You could be her twin. Your hair, your eyes...I don’t suppose you had a sister in Desert Bluffs?”

“Not as far as I know. Who was she?” 

“Just a friend,” Kevin said, but Earl could tell he was making a deliberate effort to keep his voice light. He decided it might be better to change the subject. 

“You mentioned someone called Vanessa,” he said, looking around the studio.

“Yes!” Kevin said happily. “Would you like to meet her?”

“Is she here?” Earl asked.

“Sure she is! She’s right over here, in the booth.” Kevin stood and headed for the producer’s booth, vanishing from sight as he bent down behind the desk. “Come on, Vanessa - oof, I always forget how heavy these things are - come meet our new friend!” He turned and carried a small, fluffy bundle back into the main room of the studio. He placed the object on the table in front of Earl. 

Earl was utterly perplexed. The thing sitting on the table in front of him appeared to be alive, but not especially active. He had never seen anything like it before in his life. It had large, black, beady eyes, like a bird’s. It had short, nubby protrusions instead of legs, not unlike a caterpillar’s prolegs. It was furry and chubby and frankly adorable, although there was something vaguely sinister about it, for all its cuteness. Perhaps it was the uncanny stillness of the thing, or the glinting, directionless gaze of its large and liquid eyes. 

“What...what _is_ this?” 

“You’ve never seen a StrexPet before?”

“This is a StrexPet? Is it alive, or on, or whatever?” He thought of the stories he’d heard about Cecil and the cat at the radio station, and leaned away from the fuzzy menace on the table.

“It’s a biomachine. Their original programming was pretty glitchy, and we had some hard times in the beginning. I’ve modified Vanessa here, so she’s perfectly safe, or at least as safe as any other pet - although my reprogramming does seem to have made her a little sluggish and unresponsive. But that’s better than the alternative, believe me! You’d never believe how quick she was before.”

“Huh,” Earl said, extending a hand toward Vanessa’s invitingly plush fur. “Is it okay if I…?”

“Sure, go ahead,” Kevin said encouragingly.

Earl sank his fingers into the luxurious fluff. It felt like chinchilla fur, so velvety soft it was almost frictionless. 

“I had an intern named Vanessa once,” Kevin said absently, his voice wistful. “She was wonderful, so funny and smart, one of those people who made you feel good whenever she was around. Such a terrific friend, and a great intern - I just knew she’d go far, be able to do whatever she wanted. I tried to help her however I could, but then she...died. It was so lonely, at the station back home. Strex gave me this thing to keep me company. At first I hated it, but after a while, I guess, since it was the only thing...I just…how could I not? I needed _something._ ” he shrugged helplessly, stroking Vanessa’s round head. His fingers brushed Earl’s, and Earl jumped as if he’d just gotten an electric shock.

“Sorry,” Kevin said, his smile faltering a little.

“Don’t be,” Earl said. He didn’t move his hand away. “I don’t mean to change the subject,” he began.

“Oh, no, please do change the subject,” Kevin said, his smile returning with enthusiasm. “Not that I don’t just adore dwelling on unpleasant memories from time to time, but a little goes a long way.”

Earl laughed. “I hate to be a demanding guest, and I know there’s some kind of weird zombie horde waiting outside to kill us...but is there anything to eat around here? I’m starving.”

* * * 

They spent the rest of the evening in easy conversation; Earl told Kevin about Roger, and Kevin told Earl more about his year in the desert otherworld with Carlos and the masked army. Kevin purchased a box of wine from a vending machine in the hall and they had a makeshift dinner consisting of watercress and cheese sandwiches with some of the things Earl had foraged in the desert and supplies from the office kitchen. Eventually, the physical exertion of the journey started to catch up with Earl and he had to stifle a yawn.

“You must be tired, after your trip?” Kevin said. 

“I am, I’m sorry. I’m exhausted.” 

“It is getting late,” Kevin said. He glanced toward the corner of the room, where a ladder led up to a narrow opening in the ceiling, and frowned. “There’s a storage area upstairs that I’ve been using as a bedroom,” he explained, pointing. “I set up a futon for you - I hope that wasn’t presumptuous. Of course if you’d rather stay somewhere else-”

“No, that’s fine,” Earl said, and they smiled at each other nervously. 

“Oh, good. It gets pretty cold at night, and it stays warmer up there than anywhere else in the station. There’s a bathroom up there and everything...the problem is, the ladder is the only way up and down. Our original plan was to make everything ADA-compliant, but we never got around to installing an elevator here. Or even stairs.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Earl said. “Stairs are actually much harder for me. I can manage a ladder, I think, as long as you can give me a hand at the top.”

“Of course I can,” Kevin said. “But I’m just not sure we can get the walker up there. The hatch is pretty small.” He pointed the little square hole in the ceiling.

Kevin was right; the walker's wide frame would not fit through the opening, so Earl took his toothbrush and washcloth to the bathroom on the main level. The shower was an impossibility, but he managed a decent washing-up at the sink, and soon he was clambering up the ladder, using his upper body to pull his foot up to each rung. Once he got to the top, he glanced over at Kevin, who was sitting cross-legged on a low futon in the corner. A second mattress had been unfolded on the opposite side of the cozy room. 

Kevin stood without comment and extended his hands to Earl, who hesitated for only a second before taking them. He’d been so self-sufficient at home and even in the desert, he hadn’t thought of this, the necessary intimacy of disability. Without the walker, if he needed to get up for any reason, he’d need Kevin’s help. He’d even need his help to lie down, given how low the mattress was. 

He took hold of Kevin’s forearms, and together they got him up the last few rungs. Without being asked, Kevin slipped one shoulder under Earl’s arm and helped him over to the second futon. 

Kevin was about to release him but Earl stopped him with a light touch on his arm. “I’m, um, going to need a hand getting horizontal,” he said, blushing furiously. “I can get about halfway down, but then I’ll probably just fall over, so if you could just -”

“Oh,” Kevin said. “Yes, I see. I guess you usually have the walker nearby.” He held out his arm, and Earl clasped it as he leaned back slowly. 

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” 

Earl skinned out of his shorts, found his compression sock in his backpack and rolled it over the end of his stump, avoiding looking at Kevin. Years of physical therapy, invasive medical treatments, and the curious stares of strangers had cured him of any self-consciousness about his body, but he wasn’t sure he could handle it if he saw disgust or pity on the other man’s face. At the same time, he didn’t want to perform this necessary ritual in private; he _wanted_ Kevin to see, to understand the reality of his situation; better to know now if it was going to be a problem. He pulled a warm wool stocking over the compression sock and squirmed under the covers.

When he finally looked, he saw that Kevin was making an adjustment to Vanessa, and wasn’t paying any attention to him at all. 

“I’m programming Vanessa’s purr mode,” Kevin explained, as the little creature began to rumble softly. “I hope you don’t mind, but it really helps me relax.”

“No, I like it,” Earl said, truthfully. It was a low, rusty rumble, consistent and just loud enough to drown out the sporadic night sounds that sometimes startled him awake in the early hours of sleep. “Kevin?”

“Yes?”

“If I, uh, need to get up in the night, I might have to wake you. For help. I just...wanted to let you know, I guess. So you wouldn’t be surprised.”

“No problem,” Kevin said. Then, a moment later, more hesitantly, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Does it bother you, having to ask for help?”

“Yeah, a little,” he said. “No offense, it’s nothing to do with you, I just try to be self-sufficient. I don’t like to have to constantly bother other people.”

“Self-sufficient,” Kevin pronounced the words slowly. At first, Earl wasn’t sure he was going to say anything else, he paused for such a long time. “I’ve been here, by myself, for a while now,” he said, finally. “I’ve done all right, taking care of myself. I guess in that way I’ve been self-sufficient.” He plucked at a loose thread on his comforter. “But it’s not enough. _I’m_ not enough. Not _sufficient._ ”

“Hey,” Earl said, but Kevin raised a hand to stop him.

“No, please listen. Just now, when you...you _needed_ me? That was probably the best feeling I’ve had in years. So please, don’t hesitate to ask me for anything.”

Earl opened his mouth but no sound came out. Such a thing had never occurred to him; he’d only ever thought of his increased neediness as a burden. But now that Kevin had said this, it occurred to him that even in his somewhat reduced condition, he still looked for opportunities to help others. He cared for Roger, something he didn’t consider to be a burden. He’d cared for and helped countless Scouts and their families. He cared for his staff and customers at Tourniquet.

He burrowed deeper into the sleeping bag, and wondered how he’d gotten the idea that being helped by others was somehow bad, while helping others was good. Was it possible both were good? Had he been striving for a self-sufficiency that was not only impossible, but unhealthy?

* * * 

He awoke to a much more serious kind of rumbling, more a vibration of the floor underneath his thin foam mattress than a sound. His eyes opened stickily as another thunderous thump shook the building. He pulled himself up on one elbow, rubbing his eyes.

“It’s one of the masked armies,” Kevin whispered. Earl looked over toward Kevin’s bed and saw that the other man had his knees drawn up to his chest, his eyes wide and dark in the gloom.

A tremendous din of banging and shouting started somewhere nearby, and the floor shook even harder. “What are they doing?” Earl asked. 

“I don’t know. I haven’t dared to go down and look,” Kevin admitted. “But it sounds like they’re fighting. It happens sometimes. So far they’ve all left the radio station alone, but still…” He shuddered.

“So this isn’t _the_ masked army? Just _a_ masked army?”

“I don’t know,” Kevin confessed. “But it doesn’t make much difference when they’re in battle mode. They can’t be reasoned with. Carlos used to try, but it was useless.”

“They’ve never attacked the radio station?” 

“No,” Kevin said, and he didn’t say, “Not yet,” but he didn’t need to.

Earl pulled his arm back under the covers; the night air was chilly. He looked at Kevin again, shivering in the dark.

“If you want-” he started, before he could think about what he was saying, but his brain caught up and he stopped. It was what he did for Roger, on the nights when he couldn’t sleep or had a nightmare, but this was different. 

Kevin looked at him, momentarily distracted from his fear. “What?” he asked.

Earl considered backtracking, but the hopeful look on Kevin’s face made him think maybe he wasn’t being a total idiot after all. “Come here,” he said, wiggling backward to make room for Kevin in the lee of his body. “Bring your blanket.”

Kevin didn’t demur. He slid down onto the mattress, snuggling himself back against Earl and pulling the blanket around his shoulders. Earl turned onto his left side, bending his knee into the nook behind Kevin’s and throwing an arm around him. Earl could feel the warmth of Kevin’s body seeping through the thin coverlet that separated them, and there was something about the way he fitted there, about the sympathetic geometry of their bodies, that sent waves of tingling heat up and down Earl’s spine. 

“I think the noises are getting farther away,” he said softly, his breath stirring Kevin’s hair. “But for now, you go ahead and sleep, I’ll stay up for a while and keep an ear out.” And a few minutes later, he felt the release of tension as Kevin fell asleep, going soft in his embrace.

* * * 

The thumping, yelling and crashing sounds drifted further and further away and finally stopped altogether, so Earl let himself doze. He had mastered this skill since Roger’s appearance in his life; he could drift along the very edge of consciousness, relaxed but not quite asleep, ready to respond to the slightest sign of trouble.

It wasn’t trouble that roused him, though; it was a light touch on his arm. At first, he thought he’d imagined it, but then it happened again, a slow, gentle stroke along the exposed skin of his forearm, where it crossed Kevin’s chest. He felt the fine hairs there stand on end, and he reflexively squeezed Kevin closer, eliciting a hum of pleasure from the other man.

Earl thought about his hike across the desert, and how it had awakened his long-dormant appetite. How he’d wanted to laugh in something close to joy just because he really, truly felt like eating for the first time in years. He had suddenly been _starving,_ fantasizing about food, imagining increasingly decadent and ridiculous things that were impossible for him to have; how even the rough, plain fare he’d eaten had been ambrosia as far as his deprived senses were concerned.

He was experiencing something very similar at this very moment. His senses narrowed their focus to his pounding heart and the slow drift of his breath, to every place where Kevin’s body touched his. To the feather-light wisp of Kevin’s fingertips, to the salt and copper scent of Kevin’s skin. His body felt like a taut wire, electric with the anticipation of the next whispery caress along the previously innocuous stretch of skin between his elbow and his wrist.

Instead, there were Kevin’s fingers twining with his, and the damp heat of Kevin’s lips brushing the back of his hand. He stifled a groan of pleasure; he was so starved for touch that even this light graze felt almost pornographically intimate. Kevin caught his breath, and his body stiffened.

“I thought you were asleep,” he murmured, releasing Earl’s hand. “I’m...I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

Earl caught Kevin’s hand in his and squeezed gently. “Don’t stop,” he said roughly. “I…” he paused, as his throat tightened and his mind went blank; as _want_ permeated everything, sinking down from his skin to his blood to his bones, soaking into every nerve. “Just don’t stop.”

Kevin lifted their joined hands and pressed his lips to each of Earl’s knuckles in turn; a touch so light it couldn’t even properly be termed a kiss; it was the essential part of longing, concentrated into a moment of physical contact, hesitant and desperately urgent.

Earl lowered his head, pressing into the little cove between neck and shoulder, and Kevin guided his hand under the hem of his t-shirt, gasping as Earl’s cool palm made contact with the warm flesh of his chest and belly. 

“Is this okay?” Kevin whispered, without turning around. “Is there anywhere-” he gave a little gasp as Earl’s hand passed across his chest again - “anywhere you don’t want me to touch you?”

Earl kissed the tender place between Kevin’s neck and shoulder. “No,” he said. “I think I’d like you to touch me everywhere.”

Kevin rolled in his arms, facing him. “I should tell you something.” Earl regarded him steadily, and Kevin went on. “Sometimes, I have difficulty separating...separating intimacy and violence,” he said, voice unsteady, lower lip trembling.

“Okay,” Earl said.

“The only way to keep them apart...to be _safe_...is to go very, _very_ slowly. And even then,” he inhaled a shaky breath, “Even then I might have to stop.”

“Okay.”

“Just okay?” Kevin asked, blinking. 

“Just okay,” Earl said. “Go as slow as you want. Stop whenever you want.” His voice broke a little and Kevin regarded him askance.

“You sure?”

“I am, of course I am, it’s just...it’s been a long time. Since anyone...” 

“Touched you like this?”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“I...I can’t even remember,” Earl said with a breathy laugh. “A really long time.”

“Me neither.” 

“ _Oh._ ” Kevin’s hands moved down the front of Earl’s t-shirt, then underneath it, sliding warm against his skin, and Earl thought his heart might burst, it was beating so hard and so fast. “So then...for now…” Earl said, inhaling deeply and then letting it out in a single heavy gust. “Maybe we should just do this. Just touch.”

“For now,” Kevin said, as if trying the idea out.

“For now,” Earl replied, as he drew one hand down Kevin’s scarred cheek.

* * * 

Kevin sometimes had dreams or memories of a time when gentleness had been an essential part of his nature, when he could touch things without fearing that he would destroy them, but he’d never thought he’d be able to get that back. For a long time, the only way for him to love something was to tear it apart; the only way to trust anything was to hold its bleeding heart in his hands.

A year ago, when Carlos had discovered him living in a cave a little way away from the masked army’s encampment, he’d asked Carlos to leave him there. Carlos had refused.

“No, I’m not leaving you here,” he’d said in his matter-of-fact way. “Now get your things and come to the settlement. I’ll ask the masked army to help you carve out an apartment.” And he’d bustled Kevin out of the cave like a mother hen. 

As they had walked back to the camp, Kevin had thought about the fable of the scorpion and the frog, and wondered if Carlos would one day regret this kindness. He stopped the scientist on the outskirts of the camp, and recited the story to him.

‘Don’t you see?” he pleaded, staying several feet away from Carlos. “You _know_ I’m like the scorpion, that the poison is in my very nature. Why do you insist on bringing me here? What if I hurt someone?”

“I don’t think it _is_ in your nature,” Carlos had said. “That’s ridiculous. Real scorpions don’t go around looking for excuses to hurt things; they’re just trying to get along, like everyone else. And they have a right to do that, Kevin! And so do you!” 

Carlos had helped him to find himself again, to find the goodness Strex had almost managed to eradicate. It hadn’t been easy, but Kevin knew he had changed for the better over that year. He would never be the person he’d been before the Smiling God, but now he had enough perspective to see that he might, one day, be someone that earlier Kevin would like. Maybe even be proud of. 

He still struggled with the Smiling God. Every single day. But his resistance was like a muscle; it got stronger every time he used it. He’d had a relapses here and there - like when he’d realized Carlos was becoming disenchanted with the masked army and his plan to get Cecil out of Night Vale. But it hadn’t been too bad; he hadn’t actually killed anything himself, he’d just collected the offal cast off after one of the masked army’s hunting expeditions and strewn it around the studio. And himself. And later the mailbox.

 _Be honest,_ he reminded himself. Euphemisms and misdirections paved the way to the Smiling God. He couldn’t afford to sugarcoat anything, he had to be ruthlessly, brutally honest with himself, no matter how much it hurt. The entrails in the studio had probably been the final straw for Carlos, especially after Carlos had been so disturbed by the huge pools of giant’s blood in his apartment. Kevin felt sure Carlos had noticed his quickening interest at the mention of so much blood, and had been disgusted with him. 

The brief satisfaction that had given him was nothing, _nothing,_ compared to the thrill he felt just looking at Earl. He was so lovely, with his tousled coppery hair, the places where the sun had touched him going olive-gold and freckled. He was a little too thin, and his eyes looked bruised from the lack of real rest, but the beauty was there, bone-deep and exquisite. Kevin wanted to kiss him so badly he almost couldn’t stand it, wanted to tear away the t-shirt and the threadbare boxers and lick and kiss every single freckle, find every place that tickled and every place that made him moan and tease him until neither one of them could stand it for another second. He wanted to court danger, to throw caution to the winds, lose his head completely.

But Earl trusted him. He hadn’t said so, not in so many words, but it was implicit in everything Earl had done. He’d come all the way here just because he’d heard, in Kevin’s desperate and lonely broadcasts, something worth saving, even at the risk of his life. He was now completely defenseless and magnificently vulnerable, lying on the bed in front of Kevin like a sacrifice. When he said, “It’s okay,” or “I’m sure,” all Kevin heard was “I trust you.” 

So he slowed his caresses, and pulled Earl into a tight embrace. 

He was pretty sure he would have been fine going further; but he wasn’t going to gamble on “pretty sure.” And besides, they had a few more days. There would be time. He closed his eyes and waited for the urgent beating of his blood to cease.

* * * 

The next day, they hiked along a path that wound up the side of the mountain, and ate lunch on a high rock outcrop overlooking the sweeping desert plains below. It was a nice place to be, especially in the afternoon, in the shade of the mountain, as a sage-scented breeze blew across the desert.

“When you think the masked army will come back here?” Earl asked, as they watched a pair of zombified former Night Valians meander around a dry wash in the distance. As Kevin had predicted, they’d scattered after the masked army’s recent visit.

“They’re unpredictable,” Kevin replied. “I don’t know. Why?”

“I’m a little worried about leaving you here while the Night Valians are still hanging around. I think maybe we need to get them back on the roller coaster.”

“But how? We’d have to confront them at some point, I guess, and they’ll still be a crowd, right? You seemed to have some trouble with that. And I…” he trailed off, his eyes glazing over for a moment.

“You what?” Earl prompted. 

“It’s related to that whole violence thing I mentioned last night,” Kevin said, biting his lip and not meeting Earl’s gaze. “I’ve been working on it, and I think I’m doing _much_ better, but if something happens and there’s… _blood,_ ” he whispered the word, as if saying it at normal volume would give it too much power, “I can’t guarantee that my reaction will be, ah, as focused and productive as we might like.”

“Okay,” Earl said, and he smiled crookedly. “What a pair. A one legged ex-Scoutmaster with PTSD, and an exiled radio host with a mostly manageable case of bloodlust.”

“When you put it that way, it all sounds so charming,” Kevin laughed. “Like they’re just little personality quirks and not problems at all.”

“Maybe they’re not,” Earl said. “Maybe they’re just the things that brought us together.” 

On the way up the slope, he’d found a hive of honeybees built into a deep crack in the rock face, and, after lighting a handful of brush on fire to smoke out the hive’s occupants, had retrieved a small piece of honeycomb from inside. He broke off a piece now, and offered it to Kevin.

“Is it good?” Kevin asked. 

“Try it and see,” Earl said, holding it out between two fingers and thumb.

Kevin came closer, but didn’t take it. Instead, he leaned over and sucked the sweet, sticky fluid from the comb, his lips just touching Earl’s fingertips. Earl swallowed with a click, eyes going unfocused, a blush rising under the smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheekbones.

“Good?” he asked, his throat suddenly dry.

Kevin pulled Earl’s face close to his own. “Try it and see,” he said, and kissed him, mouth slightly open, tongue head-swimmingly sweet.

“Do you need to stop?” Earl asked, when Kevin drew away at last. His lips were still tingling and the day had somehow gone from warm to hot. 

“Maybe just a little more,” Kevin whispered, kissing Earl on the mouth again. It was a long time before they stopped.

* * *

That night, Kevin helped Earl up the last few steps to the loft and lowered him down onto the mattress, smiling when Earl didn’t release his arm, but tugged him gently downward. Kevin let himself be drawn down, dropping to his knees in front of Earl.  


"I thought you wanted to get some rest," Kevin said. 

“I do,” Earl said. “I’m really tired, I can barely keep my eyes open.” He didn’t actually seem to be having a problem staying awake.

“Me too,” Kevin said. There was a lingering moment of non-contact as they sat close together, breathing one another’s air. Earl reached out, hesitated, cupped Kevin’s face in his hand, and finally closed the last inch between them, pressing his lips to Kevin’s in excruciatingly deliberate increments. 

It had happened so slowly, they were both surprised by the electric rush of it, the surge of attraction that followed the delicate joining of their lips. The now-familiar tingling sensation that began at the base of Earl’s skull shimmied its way down his spine, threatening to shake him apart. Everywhere Kevin rested a hand or a fingertip became an erogenous zone, and pleasure burned through his veins, heat and pressure building in crazily exponential leaps until he had to pull away or lose his head completely.

“Slow,” he panted. “We need to go slow, right?” 

Kevin nodded. He didn’t want to go slow, he wanted to throw caution to the winds, to rip off Earl’s clothes and look at all that lovely freckled milk-pale skin stretched over his lanky frame, to touch it and taste it, to...but no. No. He had to be sure.

“Maybe we could just stick to kissing?” he said, uncertain, but Earl nodded soberly as if this were a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

“Just kissing,” he repeated. And they both relaxed, expectations defined and agreed upon. 

They kissed again, not rushing right up to the brink of something else, but lingering in their enjoyment of just this, their mouths joined, hands cradling faces, breathing together, eyes closed.  


Earl steadied Kevin’s face between his hands and pressed warm kisses to each of his eyes, his nose, the deep dimple in his cheek. Kevin kissed the seashell-pink edge of Earl’s ear, down his throat, feeling the movement when Earl swallowed with the effort of restraint.

“Too much?” he asked.

“No...or _yes_ , but it’s...good,” Earl said, and Kevin thought he knew what he meant. It was all a little too much, like being hungry and being tempted with all your favorite foods, but in a way the unfulfilled yearning felt _good_ , like pressing on a loose tooth, a pleasurable pain that Kevin didn’t have a word for.

“What do you call this?” Kevin asked, as Earl retaliated, kissing a line from the light pulse of his inner wrist up the inside of his arm. “It’s like torture, but not really...like opening a door and not walking through? It’s _awful_. I think I _love_ it.”

“It’s called kissing,” Earl said wryly, and he leaned in to do it some more.

* * * 

The following morning, after Kevin had helped Earl into and out of the downstairs bathtub, they sat together eating Pop-Tarts from the office vending machine and smiling nervously at one another.

“I have to start back to Night Vale tomorrow to be sure I’ll be home when Roger gets back,” Earl said. “So, if it’s okay with you, I was thinking maybe we could try to get the Night Valians back on that roller coaster today. I think I have a plan. Sort of.”

“Oh,” Kevin’s face fell at the reminder of Earl’s impending departure. 

“The alternative would be to try to get them back to Night Vale...but I don’t really see that as a helpful move at this point,” Earl explained. “And...I was hoping you might walk me partway back? That way, if you ever wanted to come and visit me...you’d know the way.”

Kevin said “Oh,” again, but it was a very different syllable the second time. “I’m excited about this plan of yours,” he said, taking another dainty bite of Pop-Tart. “Tell me more.”

* * * 

That evening, just before sunset, Earl and Kevin stepped carefully out of the radio station and into the sand-blown lane that led down into the abandoned settlement. It was quiet, the only sound was the wind whistling softly as it blew between the rocks on the mountainside.

“Do you think they’ve come back?” Earl asked quietly. “Or are they still scattered because of the masked army?”

“It usually only takes a day or so,” Kevin said. “But they might not show themselves until it’s too late for me to turn back.”

“They didn’t seem that organized when I ran into them,” Earl said.

“That’s because they hadn’t decided they wanted to kill you,” Kevin explained. “And like I said, they generally move slowly, during the day. At night...” he didn’t finish the thought, and he didn’t have to.

“I guess we’d better get over to the roller coaster while there’s still some daylight, then,” Earl said, squeezing Kevin’s hand briefly.

They were about halfway there when Earl heard them, the shush of shoe leather against the soft sand, skittering sounds coming from crevasses in the tumbled rock at the foot of the mountain. 

“You’d better go,” Earl said, looking at Kevin. “They’re coming.”

Kevin hesitated, looking at Earl, and took a step toward him. “I don’t want to,” he said. “Earl, I’m not sure I feel good about this. Maybe we should reconsider.”

“There’s no way I’m leaving you here with a bunch of people stalking the night, trying to kill you,” Earl said. “Just go. I’ll be fine.”

“But you-”

“I’ll be fine,” Earl said again, smiling. “I’ve got this part. You go dismantle the brakes before we catch up. It’s going to be scary, but I really think it will work.”

Kevin bit his lower lip, looking ahead at the looming bulk of the coaster, then back at Earl one more time. “I could kill them all,” he said. “They’re really no threat to me in the way you think - it would be easy. I- I don’t _want_ to, but if it looks like they’re going to hurt you, I could tear them to pieces. It would take almost nothing. If you need me - ”

“Don’t do it,” he said. “Not for me, not for anyone. It’s not worth it.”

“You’re an idiot,” Kevin said with a sigh, but he turned and took off running toward the roller coaster, carrying a bag of tools in one hand.

Earl didn’t dare look back. He didn’t know whether his former peers from Night Vale could sense his fear, but the thought of them emerging from the darkness, with their claw-like, grasping hands, was almost debilitatingly frightening. He focused on breathing, on moving the walker forward and pulling his body after it. It was easier than it had been on the trip out; a little rest and food after the hard exercise had left him feeling stronger than he had in years.

Then a voice like a fingernail lightly tracing the track of his spine hissed from the darkness, “Sssssscoutmaster…”

A chorus of other voices joined the first, mocking him in his slow progress as they drew nearer and nearer.

“Where are you going, Scoutmaster Harlan?” asked Mrs. Wilson. She had appeared abruptly at his elbow, her feet making no sound, her once-familiar, formerly friendly presence jarring in this bizarre setting. 

“I’m avoiding a certain geographical anomaly,” Earl said, keeping his voice casual with an effort. “What are you guys doing?”

“Geographical...anomaly?” she asked, and her shriveled face changed, twisting into a strange expression that combined doubt and contempt at once. 

“Sure,” he said, turning to her, stage whispering while pointing toward the mountain, “The m-o-u-n-t-a-i-n.” 

“More like...the _nothing_ ,” she slurred, her gaze turning toward the roller coaster. “ _He_ is here. The Other.”

“I know,” Earl said. “But we have to prioritize. Vector H is definitely the main issue here.”

The entire group paused at that, looking from Earl to the mountain and back again. 

“Yeah, I thought you guys might have forgotten about that. We need some time to consider our situation, right? Just like the song?”

Someone sang a little scrap of the nursery rhyme. “Not a mountain, not a hill, we all know that they’re not real…”

Another voice picked it up, the childish cadence wavering eerily in the dim twilight, “Your panicked state you can assuage, if you remember Vector H…”

“Exactly,” Earl said, as if a decision had been made. “Come on, we’d better get going.”

“But...The Other,” said one of the Night Valians, sounding genuinely crushed. “We must...destroy…”

“All in good time,” Earl said in his most authoritative Scoutmaster-ish tone. “I think we all know what’s the bigger issue here.”

“Vector H,” Mrs. Wilson whispered. “ _Then_...The Other?” She opened her mouth and an unidentifiable dark fluid ran down one corner of her chin.

“Um. Yeah,” Earl answered, although his skin had just made a valiant effort to crawl away and hide. “That’s just what we’re going to do, if you’d all just...come with me.” He’d forgotten to breathe for a few seconds, and he was panting now, with the effort of staying calm and slinging himself along with the walker. He glanced ahead, but Kevin had disappeared. Earl could only hope that the Night Valians would stay with him, match his pace, and give Kevin time to do what he needed to do.

“But...where are we…?” Mrs. Wilson asked. 

He paused for a moment, catching his breath, and tried to smile at Mrs. Wilson. “Getting around isn’t quite as easy as it used to be,” he said, gesturing at the walker. “So I thought maybe I’d give the roller coaster a spin.”

* * * 

“Vanessa, why did I let him talk me into this?” Kevin asked. He’d left the StrexPet at home, but he’d always talked to Vanessa in moments of stress, and he was definitely stressed now. He looked back down the path toward where Earl and the horde of zombies were making their way toward him - if they hadn’t silently torn Earl to pieces and surrounded him while he wasn’t looking - and gritted his teeth. “If something happens to him, I swear, I will not be responsible for my actions. Is it really so much to ask that I be allowed to meet new people without having them torn apart by zombies from Night Vale? I ask you, Vanessa.”

As he talked, he worked, removing the brakes he’d installed, checking to make sure the coaster car was gliding smoothly on its track. Now all he needed was to figure out how the masked army had propelled the thing in the first place. 

He climbed down a ladder into the coaster’s substructure and studied his surroundings. “If we’re very lucky,” he whispered. “This will be electromagnetic.” 

He could hear Earl’s voice, a little louder than usual, and the susurrus of answering voices, strange, hissing, affectless voices, the strange, slushy voices of the Night Valians. But Earl was alive, he was okay. He’d made it this far. Maybe this idea of his would work, if only Kevin could figure out where the launch assembly was. He looked up at the coaster’s starting point on the track overhead, then down to a large metal casing that ran along the floor of the platform where he stood.

“Vanessa, I think this is good,” he said, forcing cheerfulness into his tone so as not to alarm the absent StrexPet. “It’s a medium-voltage advanced linear induction machine. An electromagnetic catapult, just like the monorail back in Desert Bluffs! We can work with this.”

* * * 

Earl had led the Night Valians to the platform and was standing in front of the coaster car, hoping desperately that he’d given Kevin enough time to dismantle the brakes and figure out how to get the ride started again.

Mrs. Wilson stepped forward and lifted the safety harness, beckoning for Earl to climb in. “Go on…” she said. “Get insssside…”

“Uh, bad news, guys,” Earl said. “I don’t know if this thing is ADA-compliant.”

The Night Valians all turned to look at him, eyes wide, mouths agape. He couldn’t tell if they were confused by what he’d just said, or if they were just stunned that he’d try such an obvious ploy to get them on board the coaster.

“Seriously,” he said, composing his face into what he hoped was boyish naivete and not abject horror. “I really don’t think I can get in there.”

“Sssso ssstupid,” said one of the Night Valians, sliding into a seat. “How hard iss thisss?”

“Oh, sure, it’s easy for you,” Earl said. “You’ve got two legs. I only have one. Try getting out of there with just one leg. Go ahead, just try it. I bet none of you can do it.”

To his astonishment and relief, every single one of the citizens slipped into a seat, trying to elevate themselves to standing using only one leg. 

His eyes darted around the platform, but he saw no sign of Kevin. “Okay,” he said, as loudly as he could without actually yelling. “Looks like you all managed to _get aboard,_ but none of you has been able to get off again.” He held his breath. Nothing happened for a full 15 seconds, then he heard a clunk from somewhere below the track.

“Well, shoot,” Kevin’s voice drifted up from the substructure. “I guess I need to...oops, never mind, there we go!” There was a whooshing and whirring, and the safety harnesses clunked down over the heads of the Night Valians.

Mrs. Wilson turned to look at Earl, blank eyes widening as if she had finally understood his scheme.

“The Other,” she muttered. “Working with him.” She began to struggle, shoving on the safety harness, trying to get free. To Earl’s horror, she succeeding in lifting it just enough that an alarm bell sounded, followed by a buzz, and the whooshing sound stopped. It sounded like whatever energy had been gathering to launch the coaster was now powering down.

“No,” Earl said. “Stay where you are, don’t move!”

But she had struggled partway out of the car and was heading for him. “Deceived us,” she muttered as she grabbed him by the front of his shirt. He struggled against her but she was amazingly strong, her arms as inflexible as steel cables. She jostled into his walker, knocking it aside, and he stumbled, knocking into her as he fell, hard, onto the platform.

He landed badly, felt the hard metal platform as it whacked into his solar plexus, flattening his lungs and knocking the wind out of him. He could see her advancing, but could do nothing but struggle for breath, gasping futilely on the ground. 

Faster than he could have imagined, Kevin shot up the ladder, shoving Mrs. Wilson backward and away from him, crouching down beside him. 

“Are you all right?”

“F-f-” Earl still couldn’t speak, couldn’t get out even a single word. 

Kevin stood, whirling on Mrs. Wilson, who had dragged herself upright and was advancing on them again.

“Oh, no,” Kevin said. “You’re getting on that roller coaster, honey. Do _not_ make me rip off your arms in front of Earl. He wouldn’t… _like_...that!” The last three words were spoken with some difficulty, as he was forcibly shoving Mrs. Wilson back into her seat and slamming the safety harness back down. 

She flung herself forward against the padded black harness, stretching her hands toward him, clawing at his face, but he managed to step back just in time. The metal platform began to vibrate with the mounting force of the electromagnetic catapult. 

Earl finally managed a thin indrawing of breath, just as the catapult launched and the coaster was flung down the track, the moaning protests of the riders fading as it swooped into its first dizzying series of coils.

Earl reluctantly let the breath out, then inhaled again shakily. He pulled himself up on one elbow as Kevin hurried to his side. “Are you okay?” he wheezed. 

“I’m fine, don’t be ridiculous,” Kevin said, helping him sit up. “Are _you?_ ”

“I’m okay,” Earl said. He looked up at Kevin. There was a light scratch on Kevin’s temple, where Mrs. Wilson had scratched him, otherwise he appeared to be fine. “This doesn’t hurt?” He touched the scratch lightly with one forefinger.

“It’s nothing.” Kevin said dismissively. He looked down the tracks at the coaster car, which looked tiny now, silhouetted against the setting sun. He smiled at Earl, hugging him close.  
“Would it be weird if I admitted that this was kind of fun?”

* * * 

As soon as they arrived back at the station, Earl sat Kevin on the desk and cleaned the scratch on his forehead, applying antibiotic ointment from his first aid kit. He solemnly affixed a small bandage over the scratch, then leaned forward and completed his ministrations with a light kiss over the injury.

“Thank you,” Kevin said, taking Earl’s hands in his and holding them in his lap. He looked a little downcast. “I’m really going to miss you, you know?”

‘Me too.”

“I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“Me too.”

There was a little silence, then Kevin asked, “How’d you know they’d go along with all that Vector H business?”

“It’s practically everyone’s earliest childhood memory in Night Vale,” Earl said. “It really doesn’t matter what else happens, when someone starts talking about Vector H, you pay attention. I haven’t thought about that not-a-mountain at all since I got here.”

“You haven’t?”

“Nope. Plus, Night Vale citizens tend to be pretty good at following instructions.”

Kevin sighed. “It sounds like Desert Bluffs, back in the day,” he said. “Sometimes I wish I could go back.”

Earl looked at him seriously. “You could,” he said, squeezing Kevin’s hands. “You don’t have to stay here, you could come back with me.”

“I don’t think I can, at least not yet,” Kevin said. “And Carlos said this seemed like a good place to figure things out. I think I still need to work on that, for now.”

“It’s up to you,” Earl said. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will.” Their eyes met and held. Kevin slipped off the edge of the desk, rested both hands on the handle of the walker, tugging it gently toward the ladder that led up into the loft. Earl followed after it.

As soon as Earl gained the highest step on the ladder, Kevin pulled him the rest of the way up and into his arms, collapsing with him onto the nearest futon, and then they were bumping into one another, laughing, kissing, nearly rolling over the side of the futon, breathless and more than a little giddy.  


Kevin’s legs tangled with Earl’s, their hips pressed together, and Earl suddenly felt lost. When they came up for air, he asked, “Is this okay? I mean… _you’re_ okay? With this?” He didn’t have to explain what “this” was; the want was coursing between them like an electrical current. Long-dormant need hammered with every beat of his heart, and he knew if Kevin shut him down, he’d have to ask him for help getting himself into a cold shower immediately. 

“Yes,” Kevin murmured. “Yes, _yes,_ I’m fine, I’m fi-” and that’s all he managed to get out, because Earl’s mouth was on his again, kissing his words away, and he moaned and arched into Earl’s body, squirming to be closer, pulling at Earl’s clothes. He stroked his tongue into Earl’s mouth, sucking on his lower lip, hands sliding up to hold the sides of his face, pulling him closer, tasting him _more_. Earl leaned into the kiss, wrapped his arms around Kevin’s body, let his fingers dig into his shoulders and held on tight. 

Kevin’s shirt had gotten rucked up to his ribcage somehow, and Earl slid his hand inside, desperate to feel more of him, more skin, more heat, more life beating just beneath the surface. Kevin gave a muffled groan, rolling off to one side and plucking at the buttons of Earl’s shirt, freeing all but one and pressing his mouth to Earl’s chest, sucking one stiff nipple into his mouth and flicking it with his tongue. Earl thought he might die from the raw surge of ecstasy the contact sent charging through him, and he bit his lip, pushing himself against Kevin’s mouth and groaning with the pleasure of it. 

God, it had been so long; Earl wanted more, wanted to grind Kevin into ecstasy, to lick and suck and bite and yes, goddamn it, _fuck_ Kevin into the mattress until he forgot his own name and the face of the Smiling God. But he wasn’t as agile as he had once been, and he had the feeling that, at least for now, it was better to cede control of the situation to Kevin. He made himself relax, trying to slow down, to savor the moment.

He breathed in and held it; exhaled, and Kevin scraped his teeth lightly against his nipple. He let his skin ripple with goosebumps, didn’t even try to stifle his gasps of pleasure when Kevin unfastened his fly and slipped a hand down the front of his boxers. He just let it all roll over him, let himself feel all of it, and when Kevin’s mouth closed over him, if he felt the faintest pang of worry at the thought of the other man’s sharp teeth in such close proximity to the eager blood supply that was practically bursting at the seams to greet him, he didn’t dwell on it. He inhaled, held it, and exhaled again, counting slowly to ten.

* * * 

Later, Kevin would marvel at all the things he didn’t think of.

He’d remember that some Night Valians were a little… _sensitive_ about people with disabilities, or different abilities, or abilities other than those that most people took for granted. Like the little girl, Cecil’s niece, with the sweet face and the skinny, knee-socked legs held in place by the velcro straps of her wheelchair.

He’d had ample time to consider everything he’d done and said on that occasion, to review his inability to understand why anyone would willingly turn away from the promise of an able body. 

But the “repairs” offered by Strex, he knew, came with certain costs. That little girl and her large, angry father - stepfather? - had been right to refuse Strex’s offer of better living through cybernetics. 

He hadn’t thought much about the absence of most of Earl’s right leg. It just hadn’t seemed important. And it wasn’t important, because Earl was a whole person, just as he was, as far as Kevin was concerned. In what way could he be considered incomplete or less than anyone else?

But none of this occurred to him while he was making Earl writhe and moan and clutch at the folds of the comforter. It was like owning a car for years before discovering, when you accidentally pressed the unseen button on the steering wheel, that you had cruise control. 

He was _good_ at this. He was good at sex, had loved people and made love to people before, knew how to discover what gave them pleasure just as deftly as he had later learned how to cause them pain.

He slid down around Earl with his mouth, taking him all the way to the back of his throat and letting his tongue work, only pulling away when he heard the hitch in Earl’s breathing, the soft, guttural sounds that signalled an impending climax. When he broke that sensuous contact, Earl cried out in frustration, but Kevin kissed and licked his way lower, then lower still, caressing him with one hand as he plied his tongue insistently against the entrance to his body.

Earl’s hips bucked involuntarily and he grasped at Kevin’s shoulders, desperate to get his hands on something, stifling the plaintive whimper that rose unbidden in his throat. He’d been hard already, now he was aching for it, his brain chanting _Now Now Now_ with every beat of his heart.

And the sounds Earl made, the whispered curses and pleas and groans all worked on Kevin even as he was working on Earl. Earl closed his eyes, head thrown back against the mattress, throat exposed, so vulnerable and sweet and ready for him, and it all felt _right_ as he finally sat up and...oh. Oh _fuck._

“Earl,” he said, voice unsteady. “I...forgot. I don’t have any condoms...I’m _so_ sorry, but we could still…”

He braced himself for a groan of disappointment, but when he looked up he saw that Earl was reaching one hand up to the backpack leaning against the wall behind the futon, a small smile playing about his lips.

“Just one of the advantages of sleeping with a boy scout,” he said, as he withdrew a packet of condoms and a little plastic bottle of lube from an interior pocket. 

Kevin practically snatched them from his hand, ripping the wrapper apart and rolling the condom on with shaking fingers. “You are the single most wonderful man I have ever known,” he said, and Earl’s hand joined his, steadying him, sliding the sheath over him, making the act feel like a ritual, something that needed two people to complete. 

He met Earl’s eyes, and the other man nodded, biting his lower lip. Summoning all the restraint he could muster, he pushed a little way inside. Earl gave a shaky cry, back arching, and his hands came up to grip Kevin’s shoulders. Kevin’s whole body was shaking now, uncontrollably, with the effort of holding back. 

“H-harder,” Earl said, then, tentatively, “You can be a little rough,” and oh _god_ , if only he knew how reckless that statement was, Kevin thought, but he pushed farther, farther still, and the sounds Earl was making were _too much,_ driving him slowly and steadily out of his mind with want. With a groan, he plunged all the way in, and Earl wrapped his one good leg around him and canted his hips, crying out in pleasure.

“More?” Kevin asked through clenched teeth.

“ _God_ yes.” 

Enough said. Kevin withdrew and shoved in again, trying to keep up a steady rhythm and hit that sweet spot, the place that made Earl shout with the searing rightness of it, and he wrapped a hand around Earl’s cock, feeling it jump in his hand, the velvet soft skin sliding a little with his hand as he stroked coaxingly up and down.

“ _Oh,_ ” Earl gasped as Kevin sped up, thrusting into the hot tightness, and Kevin felt him let go, at last, in his hand. His own insides suddenly felt light as air, billowing full of the huge gust of pleasure that stormed through his body. Earl moved under him, hips flexing involuntarily with the force of his orgasm, sending the last few stray jolts of pleasure up his spine, and together they slowly managed to roll to a stop. 

Kevin lay on top of him, face buried against the salty sweet skin of Earl's neck, but eventually reality settled back around them and Kevin rolled off to one side. He had the strange sensation of sinking back into himself, and as he turned to look at Earl, he heard the faint noises of the Night Valians screaming on the roller coaster.

“This has been a really lovely evening,” he said, snuggling closer to Earl, pulling his arm around his shoulders.

* * * 

A little while later, as they lay sleepily entangled under the tumbled covers, Kevin drifted out of a doze with a question.

“What’re the other advantages of sleeping with a boy scout?” He asked, a little muzzily.

“You’ll see,” Earl promised.

* * * 

Kevin was glum the following morning when he woke up with one hand resting on Earl’s bare chest, his forehead tickling where a lock of auburn hair had tumbled forward into both their faces.

What if Earl hadn’t really liked it? What if he said he had to go and packed up and left right away? And anyway, wasn’t he going to have to do exactly that? Kevin stared at Earl’s rust-colored eyelashes where they rested along the top of one freckled cheek, and sighed. He had no control over this situation, least of all over his own heart, and it was terrifying.

But then Earl’s eyes blinked awake, focused on Kevin, and he smiled, and everything was okay.

“I was just going to go make some coffee,” Kevin said.

“That sounds good.”

“I have a special way of making it. It involves persuading the coffee beans to reduce themselves to a powder using positive reinforcement techniques. It really helps to bring out the flavor.”

Earl smiled his endearingly crooked smile and Kevin felt his heart roll over like a smitten puppy. “I’d like to try that.”

“But then you woke up,” Kevin said. “And...now I think I coffee might have to wait. I think I might like to do something else.” His hands slid up Earl’s chest, then down. Then down a little further, where they lingered.

Earl caught his breath. His voice sounded strained when he said, “That sounds good.”

Kevin leaned forward and whispered in his ear, and Earl’s eyes fluttered shut as Kevin began to kiss and lick his way down Earl’s neck. “Yeah,” he said. “I’d like to try that.”

* * * 

Later, after they’d finally said their goodbyes and Kevin had walked him to the place where the desert otherworld ended and the Night Vale Dog Park began, Earl found the perfect campsite just as the sun touched the horizon. He crested a little rise and spotted a flash of green at the foot of a towering bluff. There, he found a shallow niche in the cliff wall, perfect for staying out of the wind. Even better, water seeped from the bluff’s sheer face. Watercress clustered in the pooled water at the base of the spring, and he gathered a little to go with the cactus paddles, prickly pears, pine nuts and other edible items he’d collected over the course of the day. He removed the cactus spines and rind and cooked everything together in a bit of tin foil on the coals of his campfire, added a little cool watercress as a side dish, and ate under the stars.

It was the best meal he’d had in ages. He thought of Roger, and wondered if he was learning to identify edible plants, to find water, to set up a campsite on his own. If not, maybe he could teach him, when they both got home again.

Thinking of Roger, he pulled his cellphone out of his pack and studied it. Still charged to 100%, just as it had been when he left. He dialed Steve’s number and, after a few minutes of catching up with Steve on all of Janice and Roger’s adventures, he asked to talk to his son.

“Hi Dad!”

“Hey, Rog. I heard you and Janice tracked the North Radon spiderwolf pack to their den today.”

“Yeah, but just to take pictures. We weren’t really hunting them, just watching.”

“That’s the best way to do it,” Earl said encouragingly. “Shooting kinda spoils the fun for the spiderwolves.”

“It was so cool, we got to see their nests and everything,” Roger said. “Mr. Steve says I can come again next year. Can I go?”

“Of course you can,” Earl said.

“Will you come? Mr. Steve burns dinner every night, and he doesn’t know how to make pancakes. He only makes stones.”

“Scones.”

“Whatever. They’re gross. So can you come?”

“Well,” Earl started, and Roger groaned in preemptive disappointment.

“Janice can’t use _either_ of her legs, and she can still go camping. She does whatever she wants. If she can’t do it at first, she always finds a way.”

“I know,” Earl said. “Janice is amazing, and probably much tougher than I am. But maybe I wasn’t going to say what you thought I was going to say.”

“What _were_ you going to say?”

“I was going to ask you something. You don’t have to answer right away, if you don’t want to.”

“Okay.”

Earl’s throat was dry despite the water he’d drunk, his voice rough around the edges. “If there were a Boy Scout Troop in Night Vale again, do you think you’d want to join?”


End file.
